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Everything Is Going Deep: ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’

nytimes.com

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Re: Everything Is Going Deep: ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’

#51

Post by fzeroracer »

Pharmakon wrote: post #25
mark_l_watson wrote: post #2

I manage a deep learning team but I have some reservations about the technology. IMO deep learning is best for optimizing back end systems and not good for systems that ‘touch’ people: deciding to loan money, automated sentencing of criminals, targeted marketing from personal information, etc. For me, the problems are lack of explainability and possible bias. There are many great applications for deep learning and AI…

Being able to shrug and say “the algorithm did it,” is almost certainly seen as a killer feature for any authoritarian, soulless megacorp and others. Instead of having to take responsibility for decisions, they just point at the box they programmed to act a certain way, and blame it. Unless a lot more people understand GIGO, this is going to stick around.

Exactly, this is easily one of the scariest things to see happening. Examples like Google's recommendation algorithm pushing people towards more and more extreme content (or even bot created content) signals to me that we're headed down a very dark road.

Re: Everything Is Going Deep: ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’

#52

Post by e3pi »

Novashi wrote: post #16
maxxxxx wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These systems will be the perfect "faceless bureaucracy". Nobody knows exactly why they are doing what they do and can't be held responsible but the people who deployed them will get the profits.

Until people figure out how to hack them for profit. An AI with permissions to spend money on the company's behalf is going to fuck up eventually (and eventually in a major way). Then it's back to human bureaucracy.

A 'Medusa' browser that will constanly spawn chaff:numerous instances of false data and meta-data, patent it, Google hates it, buys it.

Re: Everything Is Going Deep: ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’

#53

Post by boomboomsubban »

anigbrowl wrote: post #38
nabla9 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It means state within a state. Origin of the term is in 1990s Turkey. Military, police and justice system were upholding national interests and acting independently from the government. Deep State is a form of clandestine government made up of hidden or covert networks of power operating independently of a nation's political leadership, in pursuit of their own agenda and goals.

upholding national interests 'national interest' seems like a highly moveable feast.

Not particularly. As they were in control of the state, their goals were considered the national interest. It may not have reflected the will of the population or government, but that's often the case with national interests.

Re: Everything Is Going Deep: ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’

#55

Post by sayno3 »

ilovecaching wrote: post #48

I wonder if it’s time for software engineers to form our own union or guild to combat misusing our profession in corrupt and immoral ways. We would have immense power as a group, but on our own we’re all beholden to our employers which makes us complicit in doing work without thought to the long term societal damage we do.

That sounds pretty dangerous. Specialists need to be kept in line by managers, in other words: people who specialize in human behavior and ethical concerns. I know that figuring out some obscure software pattern makes you feel like an omniscient god who should be corralling lesser beings into useful behavior, but really you have just ended up in your position partly because you are bad at other things.

Re: Everything Is Going Deep: ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’

#56

Post by danharaj »

whatshisface wrote: post #43
KineticLensman wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also just started reading 'The Age of Surveillance Capitalism'. Some of my colleagues at work use the term 'digital native' to refer to (young) people who have grown up with ubiquitous computing. Next time someone says that, I should now perhaps say "oh, you mean, the wage slaves of the surveillance capitalists".

> oh, you mean, the wage slaves of the surveillance capitalists That phrase is just a series of boo words concatenated together, as in, "wage (booooo) slave (booooo) of the surveillance (I'll give you that one) capitalists (boooo)." It is too woven in with the "capitalists (boooo)" movement to be effective as a rallying point for people that don't want to overturn all of society.

You think "wage" and "capitalist" are boo words? Really?

Re: Everything Is Going Deep: ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’

#57

Post by walterbell »

nabla9 wrote: post #8

Shoshana Zuboff is one of those people that make me upset when I discover them. Why didn't I hear about them and their books books much earlier? Is it only because she is not marketing her books well enough? The Age of the Smart Machine (1988) is truly visionary and well written. edit: I'm currently reading The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. The book has well developed concepts like 'behavioral surplus and 'instrume…

Check out her videos:

- (2019) https://vimeo.com/313429468

- (2014) https://youtube.com/watch?v=0QwPHinDdOc

Re: Everything Is Going Deep: ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’

#58

Post by whatshisface »

danharaj wrote: post #56
whatshisface wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> oh, you mean, the wage slaves of the surveillance capitalists That phrase is just a series of boo words concatenated together, as in, "wage (booooo) slave (booooo) of the surveillance (I'll give you that one) capitalists (boooo)." It is too woven in with the "capitalists (boooo)" movement to be effective as a rallying point for people that don't want to overturn all of society.

You think "wage" and "capitalist" are boo words? Really?

I'm not booing them myself, I'm talking about the (non-universal!) cultural subtext of those words. "Wage" has a negative connotation for being lower status than "salary," and appears in terms like "wagecuck." "Capitalist," is absolutely a boo word around leftists and was actually coined by Marx specifically to name his enemies.

Re: Everything Is Going Deep: ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’

#59

Post by filoeleven »

The Intercept has published an interview with the author, and I found it to be compelling enough to immediately start reading the book.

> You’re not technically the product, she explains over the course of several hundred tense pages, because you’re something even more degrading: an input for the real product, predictions about your future sold to the highest bidder so that this future can be altered.

> it’s clear that surveillance capitalists have discovered that the most predictive sources of data are when they come in and intervene in our lives, in our real-time actions, to shape our action in a certain direction that aligns with the kind of outcomes they want to guarantee to their customers.

https://theintercept.com/2019/02/02/shoshana-zuboff-age-of-s...

Re: Everything Is Going Deep: ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’

#60

Post by acct1771 »

mooreds wrote: post #21
randomacct3847 wrote: post #19

I’m most worried about the rise of Fintech apps enabled by APIs like Plaid. The media seems more worried about 10-year old Facebook likes being sold than a perpetual real time feed of bank transaction data ending up in the wrong hands or in the hands of a nefarious developer. For the record, I’m highly critical of Plaid and hope the tech media catches on soon. They do not require developers to communicate which permi…

> a perpetual real time feed of bank transaction data. Jeez that does sound terrifying. I mean I guess that's already here in my credit cards databases, but at least (in the USA) I have some legal protections.

Like what? Dollars to doughnuts, Facebook already has your purchase data from your card company.
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